Previews

Assassin's Creed

From there, though, we found ourselves in the center of a heavily guarded fortress with the lord's lieutenants eager for our blood. It's more than fair to say that we were chased clear across the city, desperately elbowing aside civilians and guards alike to progress through. Compared to our E3 demo, it seemed easier to slam past people, and combat seemed to move more smoothly.

But What a Pony!

We will note that while seeing Altair crawl up any building you care to put him near was as fun as ever to see, we still worry that we're going to end up simply executing our kills and heading to the tallest building possible to break line of sight and get somewhere that ladder-climbing guards can't reach. Not that hijacking a beautiful cathedral's towers for something as base as escaping the law isn't entertaining, but we're afraid that after the fifth or sixth time we've done it ambling up may lose its luster.

This is a particular concern since the escape gameplay is a third of any given mission. And we've noticed that the guards are very aggressive about maintaining both chase and communication. While we've got no problem with aggressive, smart AI, we'd like to see options for escape other than "survive to tallest building, climb it." In part, it seems like it's too hard to see where the guard who is spotting you is, making real routes -- as opposed to lucky breaks -- hard to plan.

And, as always, the tantalizing hints of sci-fi trickery are nearly omnipresent. The strange targeting icons are now joined by "memory paused" notes during the pause menu, lending credibility to the idea that your missions are actually an experiment with genetic memory. And combat, while moving more smoothly, still is the weakest-looking spot in the game. We'd love to see a final version with great, fulfilling combat, but it's fair to note that there were certainly issues with combat in the team's previous (and otherwise excellent) Prince of Persia games.

Assassin's Creed is looking quite promising, and we're glad to see Ubisoft finally opening up and revealing substantial portions of it. We'll have our interview with Producer Jade Raymond up in our TGS index shortly, shedding more light on the mysteries surrounding this title.